two hours older and more tired- movies thread!

[davy]

Plus, I am in favor of using battlemechs to fend off steampunk kraut soldiers and hijacking bullet trains to Neo-Tokyo, etc.

This.

[peacocks]

I saw Fool For Love the other night: Harry Dean Stanton, Kim Basinger, Sam Shepherd. I loved it, can't stop thinking about it. Altman is apparently king of the zoom. There is a scene where Sam Shepherd is on the floor and he can't get up no matter how hard he tries because he's drunk and his boots are half off, he is possibly sitting in a pile of broken glass, and he is trying to have a sarcastic discussion with Randy Quaid- funniest shit ever. Why does Kim Basinger always drag her sweater on the ground? Something To Think About!

[auto-da-fey]

You know, I don't think I've ever seen Fool for Love; have seen probably most of Altman's films, but when I was doing my big retrospective about four years ago it petered out at the end of the 70s (which coincided with my then-relationship really sinking into final protracted deterioration while I only worked two days as an adjunct and otherwise sunk into catatonia and Jess Franco) and I never followed through into the 80s. You've got me interested, peacocks . . . maybe after Fassbinder.

Other than my newly beloved RWF the only thing I've seen lately has been A Film Unfinished, which left me unsatisfied. Documenting the Holocaust is of course important, but as a documentary this just underperforms. I guess I was expecting some historiographical contextualization--we have this 1942 Nazi propaganda "documentary" shot in the Warsaw ghetto, 5 decades later exposed (to the surprise of anyone?) as staged, and . . . well, and mostly we watch a few survivors watch it and react. I got no harangue against bearing witness, but riveting cinema, this is not. I wanted a better sense of how the ghetto doc had been perceived in the interim, whether it had been used in historical narrativizations, stuff like that--basically, this is probably the first time in my life I will assert a documentary could have been improved by academic talking heads laying out the meaning and significance of what we're seeing. There are these revealing moments of outtakes exposing the staging, but the film doesn't really do anything with them besides saying "look, it's fake."

So, I found it lacking at that level, but at the sheer level of historical record of place/time, the footage it contains is invaluable. Also the DVD has Billy Wilder's 1944 government short Death Mills as an extra, and that is one truly harrowing, unrelentingly unblinking documenting of the concentration camps. Sickening, but necessary, and on a purely cinematic level fascinating as an ambient backdrop that arguably never leaves Wilder's film (which I'm sure has been extensively written about, though I haven't read any of it--would be interested in any recs). 

[peacocks]

I'm watching the langoliers right now and it's freaking me right out. But it's also hilarious. Really badly hilarious.

[peacocks]

Aaahhhhhhhrgg why isn't it over yet?

[reebty]

The one with Bronson Pinchot? Good luck.

[peacocks]

Ha yeah. We powered through. Somehow. Towards the end someone walked in and accused us of playing an elaborate, masochistic April fools joke.

[fishjim]

En route to a Chinatown viewing party. Just skimmed IMDB's memorable quotes:

Man with Knife: You're a very nosy fellow, kitty cat. Huh? You know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? Wanna guess? Huh? No? Okay. They lose their noses.

It's gonna be sweet.

[jebreject]

Probably my favorite film. Right up there anyway.

[peacocks]

Watched the Last Unicorn yesterday for the first time in probably 18 years???  Still magical beautiful and frightening! The drunk skeleton part probably shows what is so scary about growing up with an alcoholic- not that I did, but I remember being scared by that guy for a different reason than why I was scared by the red bull.

Also pirate cat!

PURRRRR. That be GOOOD!

[G.C.R]

I have never heard of that film! Worth checking out, then?

[peacocks]

Yeah, I'd say so. Mia Farrow, Alan Arkin, and Jeff Bridges do voices!

here's a link to a blog post about it with cool pictures.
http://guriguriblog.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/the-last-unicorn/

[mixed cats]

I had the movie taped from TV when I was a kid. I just read the book for the first time. LOOOOOOVE.

[jebreject]

We saw Paul yesterday. It was a lot of fun!

[fishjim]

Cool, K & I were talking about seeing that.

Chinatown was awesome, of course. I'd forgotten that Man with Knife in the noses scene was a cameo by Polanski. Twisted dude. His wife & unborn child were murdered by the Manson family, so he's got reason, I guess.

Other thing I noticed this time was that, like another favorite film, the script's resolution hinges on the hero's re-hearing of a major clue, "bad for grass." In Coppola's The Conversation, the re-heard clue is, "he'd kill us if he had the chance."

In place of trailers, the host played the 16 min animated short Logorama, which I'd never seen. Fucking brilliant.

[jm]

Man, I really like The Conversation. And I especially appreciate the technological verity it got goin on.

[ecoulage]

any opinions on Insidious?  wondering whether to see it this weekend.

[elpollodiablo]

Sidney Lumet died today.

I'm watching My Beautiful Laundrette this afternoon instead of reading the screenplay as assigned because I wanna do one-hitters.

[Thermofusion]

Man, sad. Great career though. He was probably my favorite from the old school of doggedly prolific workaholic directors.

[edison]

Yeah, I know Lumet's supposed to be really hit-and-miss, but the four or five movies of his I caught in theatrical reissues over the last few years were all golden - The Verdict, Serpico, Running on Empty...

[auto-da-fey]

what I love about his body of work is the way the multiple layers cover over one another and make any easy narrativization a real distortion--sure, he's an NYC filmmaker, but there's a sizable and mostly forgotten set of films that would justify framing him as a London filmmaker too.

I do find him somewhat hit and miss (though never egregiously missing--not even The Wiz) but love him anyway. Sad to see him go, but he definitely had a long and commendable run of it.

[peacocks]

I saw HANNA last night. It was fun to watch! The girl who plays her friend is amazing, the parts where she is with the family are the best. My friend had more to say about feeling like a marketing target, the lack of character development, lack of space, pretty overdone premise/plot and a few other things. I have to agree with him but I was entertained anyway and didn't feel like it was a waste of $7.  I'm seeing Your Highness tonight with some friends. It'll probably be funnier with a large group of people- I was not impressed with the trailers I saw and I  pineapple express.

[jebreject]

I saw Your Highness yesterday. It was really fun, but pretty stupid. I mean, way more stupid than Pineapple Express. Danny McBride was pretty awesome though, and there were a lot of (actually funny) dick jokes. Probably not worth full price of admission, but enjoyable, especially if you smoke a weed beforehand.

[Ignatius]

Hannah have you ever heard of a Soviet cartoonist named Boris Efimov? They were showing a documentary about him at my movie theater, and I peeked in and saw that it featured a bunch of animated stuff based on his cartoons. I dunno, it seemed like something that might interest you. If so, it's called Stalin Thought of You.

(Bonus: best moment of the day came when I let in a little old lady and she said 'thank god somebody thought of me.' This post is for you, little old lady.)

[peacocks]

I just saw your highness and it was pretty meh. I laughed, I did. There were parts that were funny. I sputtered and I guffawed at those parts. But I wouldn't say that the movie as a whole was funny (but I did not smoke a weed before hand). I like dick jokes, too. I'm forgetting most of it as the minutes tick by. Dollar movie material, IMO. Group consensus: better than tron.